Thursday, 31 October 2013

When I was in my mid-teens, I think. I used to have stabs at
writing stuff, mostly scifi or thrillers, but I never got much past the first
scene or so. In terms of actually finishing something, then it would be at
school. In Scotland, the main qualification we sit is the Higher (equivalent to
the first half of an A-Level in England) and we go to University for an extra
year to make up. For my English Literature Higher, I chose to write an
‘Imaginative Essay’ over a ‘Discursive’ one, and it was a RESERVOIR DOGS-esque
thriller with characters named after the Beatles who swore and got killed. It
might have been set in London. I remember my English teacher loving it, but
saying that it might get marked down for the swearing if a teacher in a convent
got hold of it…

I think I’ve still got an Amiga in my parents’ attic that
has the very first Ed James work…

When I decided to start writing was about eight years ago,
when my nascent music career fell apart. Nobody was interested in signing us,
and the prospect of working in an office for the rest of my life was too
depressing, so I started writing a novel. It was bad, but I persevered, learnt
my trade and I’m doing okay just now.

How long does it take
you to write a book?

The first book had a difficult gestation period and ended up
taking about three years, but most of that was off time. Since I published
GHOST IN THE MACHINE in April last year, I’ve released three sequels - the
first six months later, then another three months, then another six months. I’m
just away to release the first in another series, SHOT THROUGH THE HEART, so
that’ll be four books in eighteen months - four and a half months, on average.
And that’s from idea, to outline, to first draft, to alpha edit, beta edit,
line edit and proofing.

What is your work
schedule like when you're writing?

Sadly, I’m not doing it full-time, but I do write in my off
time. I had a fair amount of publicity last month by talking about the fact
that I used to write in my daily commute to Edinburgh and now write in my
weekly commute to London. I must spend about 15-20 hours a week writing - I’d
love it to be more.

How many crime novels
have you written?

Four in the SCOTT CULLEN series plus a supernatural thriller
with a bit of crime in it…

Which is your
favourite and why?

I’m most pleased with DYED IN THE WOOL, the fourth CULLEN
book. It is the most professional, both in terms of editing and the plotting
and so on. It’s my most mature work and covers a lot of ground - it’s over
110,000 words and was a monster to edit, but I think it’s come out really well.

Where do you get your
ideas?

All over the place. Sometimes from conversations with
friend

s which spark off ideas, sometimes from newspapers or sometimes just from
my imagination. I don’t sit in front of a blank sheet of paper and try to come
up with ideas - I’ve usually got something that I’ve wrestled with in my head
for weeks before I start attacking it properly, and then it’ll change
drastically as it forms itself, completely out of my control really.

Who is your favourite
character from your own work and why?

I enjoy writing DI Bain the most, perhaps a bit too much.
I’ve had to consciously rein him in. While he may seem unrealistic, I’ve known
and worked for people like that, with that sort of vocabulary. I’m proud of the
protagonist, Scott Cullen, as he is just a really annoying and frustrating
character. We share a fair amount, but not too much, and hopefully I don’t have
much of his worse characteristics, though he’s probably got mine.

Which character from
the work of others do you wish you’d invented and why?

I’m a massive comics geek and I’d have to say BATMAN.
There’s something I attach to really strongly about him. There’s a real depth
to the whole mythos that I just love. There’s an incredible set of stories, not
in the main continuity of the DC Comics line which is average at best, but in
standalone works like THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS which are just timeless and tell
a lot about the human condition.

If you could have
been someone from history involved in crime (good or bad) who would that be and
why?

Not quite answering your question, but I probably like to
have been someone who really innovated in a particular field, such as using
fingerprinting, DNA evidence or establish grid searches, etc. The why is that
I’d like to have effected real change to the world and add some justice back.

What are you working
on now?

I’ve just finished with a book so I’m at that brilliant
stage where I’m consolidating all of my ideas for the next Cullen book,
BOTTLENECK, ready to start writing it hopefully this week or next.

Bio

Ed James writes crime fiction novels, predominantly the
Scott Cullen series of police procedurals set in Edinburgh and the surrounding
Lothians - the first four are available now, starting with GHOST IN THE MACHINE
which has been downloaded over 100,000 times and is currently free. His next
bo

ok - SHOT THROUGH THE HEART - features vampires and werewolves but not Scott
Cullen and is out on 31-October.

Ed lives in the East Lothian countryside, 25 miles east of
Edinburgh, with his girlfriend, six rescue moggies, two retired greyhounds, a
flock of ex-battery chickens and eight rescue ducks across two breeds and two
genders (though the boys don't lay eggs).

He works in IT for a living, commuting from Edinburgh to
London every week (not every day) and writes mainly on public transport.

His blog - edjamesauthor.com - is a log of his work, his
thoughts on his writing, and a place for his word count OCD to express itself.
His music tastes will creep in now and again.

Tuesday, 22 October 2013

Today I am pleased to host fellow crime writer David Robinson, who is musing on a subject that also troubles me at times, both as a writer and as a reader - violence in crime novels.

***

A few nights
back, I watched the movie, Scum, and
I was interested to note that the BBC commissioned this film in 1979, but then
refused to broadcast it because it was too violent.

Would they have
any such qualms these days?

There’s a
tendency to increasingly graphic violence in entertainment. From cinema and TV,
through reading matter, right down to computer and video games, the writers and
directors are pulling fewer punches. We are confronted with sights which were
once the exclusive preserve of the horror movie. Scenes of mangled or half
burned bodies on the autopsy slab are commonplace. Bodies found in woodland,
half decayed, with bits missing, barely raise an eyebrow.

As writers,
it’s part of our lot to stretch the boundaries, examine people, their
motivation, action and reaction, show them warts and all. We’re never afraid to
examine the issues, as, for example, Frances’ latest novel, Someday Never Comes.

But is it
necessary to be so graphic?

The
perpetrators in my novels, The Handshaker,
and its sequel, The Deep Secret,
place the value of a human life lower than the gratification to be had from taking
that life in the cruellest means possible. They view others, particularly
women, as objects placed upon this Earth to satisfy their sadistic needs, and
having done so, to be discarded with the same disinterest as we throw away a
cigarette butt.

The Handshaker is as dark as Frances’
excellent, Bad Moon Rising, but in
the original manuscript the early scenes, the ones most likely to cause
offence, were toned down. I was advised by an industry professional to make
them more graphic, and despite my reservations, I did so. When my publisher,
Crooked Cat Books, took the project on, still doubtful, I offered to revert to
the original. They said, ‘no, it’s fine as it is.’ After release, reader
reaction was by and large, favourable. Women, particularly, find the tale
fascinating, and most appear unconcerned at the opening horrors. “It serves as
a warning against what could happen,”
one female reader told me.

This took me by
surprise. Am I out of touch with what the reader wants? Am I simply old
fashioned? I don’t think so, but I do recall a radio interview with the master
of horror, Christopher Lee, during which he said the key to the success of the
great Hammer movies lay not in what they showed, but what they did not show; i.e. that which they left
to the viewer’s imagination.

Reading The Handshaker makes me feel
uncomfortable, and faced with the prospect of turning out the sequel, The Deep Secret, I had little choice but
to include the graphic once again. Spread over eighty years, it has scenes of
physical and sexual brutality before, during and after World War Two, set
against one man’s greed for the secret to absolute control of others.

Thursday, 17 October 2013

Probably when I realised I wasn’t so good at/didn’t really
care about anything else. I’m perfectly okay at a lot of things, but writing is
something that I’ve always had a lot of fun with. I think the first notable
writing memory I have is from around six or seven years of age. I wrote a story
about a boy who throws a brick through his window and ends up giving his dad
memory loss. It seems I’ve always been in touch with the darker side of
fiction...

How long does it take
you to write a book?

First drafts don’t take me long at all. I can finish the
first draft of a novel in the space of a month. Of course, I spend another
couple of months editing, so once the process is done with, I’m probably at a
four-monthly rate, which is still pretty rapid. The key is consistency -- I
like to try and write 5,000 words every day. I’m a pretty fast writer, so
that’s perfectly achievable, but it’s important to find what we’re comfortable
with and not force anything.

What is your work
schedule like when you're writing?

I just finished university and I’m fortunate enough to be
writing full-time right now, so I suppose my work schedule is pretty, well,
writing oriented! There’s a lot of things to consider, though: as well as
writing, I run a blog, and am keen on the marketing side of things. It’s all
fun though, really. Just don’t tell everybody or they’ll all want to be a
writer...

How many crime novels
have you written?

Crime is both omnipresent yet subtle in all of my novels. What We Saw, my debut release, is a
childhood mystery novel, but once the naivety of childhood is stripped away,
there’s a very dark crime tale at the core. Killing
Freedom -- my latest release -- is more of a full-blown thriller about
a hitman who forms a bond with a family he is hired to kill, so of course,
there are elements of crime there, too. I’m working on a new, fully-fledged
crime novel for a September release, though, which is really gritty and very
British. I can’t wait for people to read it.

Which is your
favourite and why?

It’s kind of natural for a writer to be most proud of their
latest release, so I’ll say Killing
Freedom. I love the character and I really am delighted with the world
I’d set up. But mostly, the character -- he’s such a rich and deep individual,
yet I feel I’ve barely scratched the surface. Is that me announcing a sequel,
right here in this interview? Who knows?

Where do you get your
ideas?

Ideas tend to come to me in various shapes and sizes. More
often than not, my ideas arrive by inquiring into characters. If I can invent a
character in my head, I can invent a series of dilemmas and problems, and
before I know it, a whole book is forming in front of me. But a lot of the
time, just things in everyday life -- I might read something intriguing in a
newspaper, or hear a cool lyric, and sparks begin to fly.

Who is your favourite
character from your own work and why?

I feel such a traitor to my other characters saying this! I
guess I should say somebody all grim and threatening then, shouldn’t I? Keep
them sweet! My favourite lead is Jared from Killing
Freedom. I love how, on paper, he’s completely awful -- he’s a career
killer, for goodness sakes! -- and yet he somehow manages to be sympathetic.
That really makes him compelling. I’m also really keen on a character called
Price in the crime novel I’m launching later in the year. He’s a Detective
Inspector side character, and he has a lot of hilarious traits. I think readers
are going to enjoy him.

Which character from
the work of others do you wish you’d invented and why?

Harry Potter! I’d be rolling in it. But to be honest, it’s
hard to say, really. I’m reading Gone
Girl by Gillian Flynn at the moment and I love what she’s done with the two
lead characters in that book. Without wanting to spoil anything, they take the
unreliable narrator concept to entirely new levels.

If you could have
been someone from history involved in crime (good or bad) who would that be and
why?

Oh, wow -- I’d better watch my answer here, hadn’t I?! I’m
usually intrigued in the serial killer-y stuff in true crime fiction and
documentaries, and I certainly wouldn’t like to be any of those. I think Ted
Bundy is a fascinating figure, though. He’s a terrible individual and did some
horrible, horrible things, but he was an incredibly intelligent man with a
ridiculously in-depth knowledge of law enforcement. He knew his stuff, and he
exploited it for his own dark gains. Horrible, twisted, but clever.

What are you working
on now?

I’ve just sent out The
Disappearing to my editor. It’s the second instalment in a creepy-suspense
novella trilogy I’ve been working on this year. The first book -- The Painting -- went down pretty well,
so I have a lot to live up to. Otherwise, I’m editing my upcoming crime novel,
and starting a plan for the sequel to Killing
Freedom. Busy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.